Blinken arrived in Australia to participate in the meeting of the four foreign ministers, and the Australian media still wants to pull France into the game?

According to US and Australian media reports, US Secretary of State Blinken flew to Melbourne, Australia, on the 9th to attend the foreign ministers' meeting of the four countries of the United States, Japan, Australia, India and India held locally on the 10th, which was the fourth ministerial quadrangle meeting between the FOUR-nation mechanism (QUAD) between the United States, Japan, Australia and India. Australian Foreign Minister Maris Payne said Blinken and key allies were flying to Australia "with their feet" to focus on "tackling the challenges of the Indo-Pacific region.""

The U.S. State Department claimed that Blinken's visit was intended to "engage with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region to promote peace, resilience and prosperity in the region and to demonstrate that partnerships can work." However, some analysts said that the move was to show the "support" of the United States in the "Indo-Pacific" region, which shows that the United States still regards "countering" China's growing influence as a "top priority".

Ahead of the "Four-Way Security Dialogue" foreign ministers' meeting (February 9), the US State Department's Assistant Secretary for Asia-Pacific Affairs Condell announced at a telephone briefing that the "quadrilateral mechanism" foreign ministers would discuss issues such as China's so-called "challenges" to "democratic values" and the international order.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) published a commentary article written by international affairs analyst and well-known journalist Stan Grant on the 10th, which also had a sensational headline "The struggle between democracy and authoritarianism is drawing a clear line", but the text reflects the full anxiety mentality of the Australian side, worried about the long-term relatively friendly relations between India and Russia, and the arms procurement, economic and trade cooperation between India and Russia will make India, as a quad member, on the issue of Russia, such as the assembly of Russian troops on the Russian-Ukrainian border." Remaining silent," he abstained in voting on the UN Security Council proposal on the situation in Ukraine last month, and argued that Japan also maintains good diplomatic relations with Iran, raising questions about whether quad is competent (the so-called mission of democracy against authoritarianism) and whether countries will put their own interests first.

In the article, Grant also mentioned that France, as a nuclear power and the world's seventh-largest economy, sits on the sixth largest military budget in Europe, and has a military force of nearly 8,000 troops and a population of 2 million in the Indo-Pacific region, and France should play the role of "defending democratic values" in the "Indo-Pacific" region together with the quadratic countries of QUAD.

French President Emmanuel Macron went to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine issue, and Grant also hoped that France would play a role in the Indo-Pacific side as it did on the Russian-Ukrainian issue Picture: Reuters/Kremlin

However, due to the possibility of supplying nuclear submarines to Australia in the Australian-American-British Tripartite Relations Agreement (AUKUS), which led to the failure of the previous Contract for the sale of conventional submarines in France, until today, "the wound between Paris and Canberra has not healed", Grant believes that in this regard, "How can there be such a country as (France), so important but excluded?" Questioning.

The article said with concern that in the face of China's growing economic and military strength and increasingly close Sino-Russian relations, the United States "is at a time when it is difficult to strengthen its power anymore", but the strength of the "four-nation mechanism" still depends on its most powerful member, the United States, and at the end of the article, in the name of "more countries will be asked", quoting the US Secretary of State Dulles in the 1950s to then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru "Do you support the United States or oppose the United States", in order to render the world should be in the so-called "United States" The democratic values of the state", or its opposites, choose to take sides in an atmosphere.

At the regular press conference of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 9, spokesman Zhao Lijian said that democracy is a common value of all mankind, not a self-proclaimed "patent" of a small number of countries; secondly, China is the gospel of regional order, China seeks peace, development, and rough cooperation, promotes the construction of an equal, open, inclusive, and non-targeting Asia-Pacific security system that is equal, open, inclusive, and not aimed at third countries, opposes the construction of various closed and exclusive small circles, groups in groups, and opposes the creation of camp confrontation; third, any multilateral mechanism should conform to the trend of the times of peace and development. It is conducive to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation among countries. It is hoped that the United States and other relevant countries will see the overall situation clearly, calm their minds, abandon the Cold War mentality, add less "oil and vinegar" to regional relations, and "add bricks and tiles" to regional peace, stability, and prosperity.